That said, if I am dumb enough to post information a crim could actually use, it’s my fault. As such, I do what I think everyone else should: use fake info! Bob is not my real name. If I had to give my location, I would give a false one, etc. (Ok, I’m paranoid- you were going to find out at some point) It is truly that simple.

I also don’t post information that could link me to my other activities on the internet if I don’t want you to see them. I’m reasonably sure that this post, however hard you API’d it, would not turn up a great deal of info. Even if you got the email address, it’s not my main one; I have a couple of email accounts I always use when I’m needed to provide it to someone I don’t know (I only give my main email address to people I already know). I use ePrompter to check all the accounts automatically rather than check all my accounts at once.

In short, provided you know what you’re doing, don’t publish private info, and don’t do something stupid like commit a nice big crime and get the cops onto you, chances are you’re pretty safe.

Information can be used both ways. If you make it public, it should mean that you accept it and that’s who you are. Or at least, that’s what you want people to know that you are. If you don’t it means you’ve been using your online persona as a different entity from who you really are. Sooner or later, you’ll be found out. And it’s not because of technology. George Eliot was found out, with no Internet and social graph around.

As for the firefly cameras overhearing conversations, I think that argument in flawed. You would not accept 10 strangers following you and overhearing what you are saying either. So it must be that you consider your conversation PRIVATE. It does not matter that it’s a public space. Facebook is a public space, yet you can still have private conversations.

I don’t think anyone will steal your privacy if you don’t want that. But you should acknowledge that once you’ve made some information public, then it’s really public.

Part of your post has touched on a pet peeve of mine. To wit. If I have understood you correctly, you have exposed your sexuality on MySpace, even though you are uncomfortable with a future employer, etc. accessing it. For crying out loud, why???

What were you thinking to post sensitive personal information in a venue accessible to 2 billion or so internet users?

To me it seems obvious beyond question that information posted in publicly accessible locations will be accessed by people you did not expect. Why does this seem to be so hard for people to get?

Of course, maybe it’s just that I am the curious sort that often reads strangers’ profiles. (Okay, so I need a life . If you never read strangers’ profiles, maybe you never imagine that a stranger would read yours. But to me it is just obvious.

And please don’t take this rant as being aimed at you personally. Posting “private” info in public venues and being shocked when it comes to light is a major trend. I just don’t get it.

-Steve

wanted to also point you over to Bob Blakley’s post in a similar vein but from a security standpoint

http://identityblog.burtongroup.com/bgidps/2008/01/antisocial-netw.html

I so appreciate your blog and analysis danah – keep it up! Will you be at SXSW this year? I didn’t find you on a search…

Since reading your post yesterday, I’ve spent a little time playing with Google’s Social Graph system. I tried it on a number of people, including you. The results were interesting in some ways, but hardly frightening. For example, I found some interesting bloggers by following the links to you.

It seems to me that this tool is a two-edged sword, as is the case with most technological achievements. While it is possible for those in power (employers, parents, etc.) to use it to gain intelligence on the rest of us, it is also possible for us to use it in the reverse direction; employees can check up on their employers, teens on their parents, citizens on their elected officials, etc. Because Google is making this tool freely available to all comers, I personally do not see any specific danger here to society as a whole.

While I have used the analogy of a sword above, I suspect that the social graph will mostly be a butter knife. The benefits of an open society will always seem to be tainted by a minority of abusers, but it would be tragic if we allowed them to keep us from buttering our bread… er… that is, allowed them to make us hostages to fear.

Thanks for a very thoughtful and provocative post.

Curious Ray

There will always be a difference between intentful and ephemeral disclosure. Intentful disclosure may be thought of as our direct statements, products, etc. Ephemeral is our attention data, our mined data, the things we leave behind without agency or realization. When we’re forced to deal with intentful disclosure in and out of privacy context it’s creepy enough; it’s hard to imagine that we’re ever going to be comfortable with machine or human confronting us with our ephemeral disclosure.

Unfortunately, the mining/harvesting of ephemeral disclosure seems to be considered the next step. And why not? It’s computationally possible, it exists in the ether, why not go get it and confront us with the data? This kind of thinking is fueled by privilege and tight clusters; the silicon valley designers of social software exist in a world where hyperconnectivity and persistent disclosure aren’t only norms, they’re a way to advance a career. Having powerful-person-X in your social sharing network is a powerful signal, incentivizing participation at the cost of “privacy”, which is certainly a secondary economic cost as compared to job success.

I don’t see any way to stop this, but I have faith that the difference between intentful and ephemeral disclosure will always ring true, until we’re normalized to a life equation that places weirdness around privacy secondary to things like getting a job or meeting a mate (Facebook). We’re making these decisions in some places, but not all places. The greater question, as you point out, isn’t necessarily our reaction to the tools, but how technocrats and the power elite can use them for repressive or hegemonic means. I’d argue a lot of the tools for these ends are already there, but now they’re being mass-marketed.

I’ve been looking at blog aggregators and suchlike and one thing that I realised very quickly is that they assume that you will want all your identities rolled together. I really don’t: I want to keep most of my social life, for example, private and separate. I live my life, as we all do, enacting a whole range of personas that encompass me as employee, or mother, or colleague, or friend. This is not about being covert, or secretive: it’s about being private. The tech world, with its superkeen development of applications that let you do things like map where your contacts are, seems to assume that you welcome a life of full transparency and I totally agree that this coming from a white (young, male, straight, pro-capitalist) geek position of extreme privilege.

Also, if I thought for one minute that this was about Google developing an application that made my life easier, I might go for it; but all of this is just about harvesting my networks as a consumer. And there’s no need for companies to know my networks, when they already know about me at the point where I’m in contact with them directly.

I’ve been looking at blog aggregators and suchlike and one thing that I realised very quickly is that they assume that you will want all your identities rolled together. I really don’t: I want to keep most of my social life, for example, private and separate. I live my life, as we all do, enacting a whole range of personas that encompass me as employee, or mother, or colleague, or friend. This is not about being covert, or secretive: it’s about being private. The tech world, with its superkeen development of applications that let you do things like map where your contacts are, seems to assume that you welcome a life of full transparency and I totally agree that this coming from a white (young, male, straight, pro-capitalist) geek position of extreme privilege.

Also, if I thought for one minute that this was about Google developing an application that made my life easier, I might go for it; but all of this is just about harvesting my networks as a consumer. And there’s no need for companies to know my networks, when they already know about me at the point where I’m in contact with them directly.